


sun it still rises

by poalimal



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, F/M, First Time, Multi, Polyamory, pillowtalk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 10:57:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14079381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: If you are thinking up ways to leave us, I wish you would do it more quietly.





	sun it still rises

 

Okoye has been awake for hours.

The last time she must've slept through the night... hm, it must've been when Shuri was born. She is a stubborn one, little Shuri: 37 hours it took her to finally arrive.

Okoye knew about it only hours and hours later, waking up with her head still nestled against Nakia's back.

'My prince--!' she had rasped, mortified, for T'Challa had been placing a blanket over them both.

'It is well,' he shushed her, 'Isioma is outside. Do not worry, Okoye, rest.'

So everyone from the Queen-mother to her sisters must have known of her disgrace. She had tried to sit up, to apologise - but he put his hand on her shoulder, and gently pushed her back down. Nakia made a noise of discontent in her sleep, and turned back into Okoye's arms. Between the touch of the two of them her whole body came alive, and she was so stunned that what she had feared was actually true, that she lay back down without any backtalk.

' _Rest_ ,' T'Challa said, smiling fondly down at Nakia beside her. 'My sister has been born, and I would like us to tell Nakia together.'

And the smile on his face had settled so bitterly on Okoye's shoulders, it had been the thing of a moment to untangle herself from the bed. The Queen-mother had been in recovery, naturally, and was quite forgiving besides, so Okoye was never formally remonstrated for her failing. She remonstrated herself instead, of course. For _months_ , she did. She could barely bring herself to speak to anyone. Well, besides W'Kabi, that is.

Now, would the bed let her up so easy this time? She wonders. And she cannot help but stare closely at the tangle of sheets between them all.

'If you are thinking up ways to leave us,' Nakia murmurs sleepily, 'I wish you would do it more quietly. You think very loudly, my love.'

Okoye's instincts rear up at the unexpected sound and tell her to protect against the intrusion - and when they settle down once more, she lets herself smile at the sound of her lover's voice.

'Am I yours?' she asks, laughing faintly. 'Nakia... you know I should not be in love with you. With either of you.'

Nakia kisses Okoye softly, right behind her ear, and strokes a hand down her stomach. Okoye shivers.

'Should not?' Nakia asks. 'Or will not?' Okoye hmph's and turns her face away, flustered in spite of herself. 'O-k, you said "should", you meant "should". Well, what should you do, then?'

'Well, I _should_ be sleeping,' Okoye sighs, brushing it off, 'but this one waterhead girl won't leave me alone...'

Nakia slits her eyes open at Okoye, and huffs out a laugh. 'O-ko-ye,' she says. 'Be serious. What troubles you? Tell me.'

Okoye glances forward, at the well-loved paths she has drawn over T'Challa's face. How heavily he sleeps! How silent he is; how very still. Her eyes draw down to his chest, rising and falling in breath; at the scar below his rib, that he chose to keep, where death claimed him. And she tugs the sheet further up his waist, because she can now, and steels herself for what she will say.

'I have loved you... for most of my life. And it has never seemed possible to keep you. To love you and hold you and have you,' she says. She cedes to the weight of Nakia's hand upon her. 'If I were to lose you, you know I would never trust myself beside him again. Do you understand? There would be nothing left.'

Nakia clicks her teeth. '"Nothing left"! Do not take from yourself what you have not yet given,' she says. 'What about your school? Your girls?'

'I do not mean that you are everything to me,' Okoye clarifies. 'Or even that I would be nothing without you. But there would be nothing, Nakia - nothing at all.'

Nakia is silent a moment, breathing in time with her. 'Well, then, we could say you have nothing now,' she says quietly. 'What then would change?'

Clever Nakia. She always has a way of making everything seem so simple. Well, perhaps it is, to her: a person for whom having almost always follows wanting.

'You would stop asking,' says Okoye. 'That is what would change.'

Nakia's hold loosens around her. 'I do not know what your previous relationships were like,' she says, a little cool, 'but you can say no anytime you like.'

'For Bast's sake, that is _not_ what I meant and I would hope that you would know it,' Okoye says, trying to keep her temper at bay. They are forever finding little ways to dig at W'Kabi, as if he was a monster in their midst all along, not their-- their _friend_. Not anyone else's responsibility. _Theirs_.

'Well, I am sorry, but I do not understand,' says Nakia. 'Hey, hey - but I want to. Hnh? So explain it to me, please. If you are saying no right now, I will respect that. _We_ will respect that. Whatever has happened among us is in the past: you are not beholden to it. You know this, yes? We will not... we love you, Okoye. And we want you to be happy. And if being with us does not make you happy - then please. Please say no.'

'You are not hearing me,' Okoye concludes, shaking her head. 'You do make me happy. And I do not want to lose you. That is why I am saying yes right now.' She pauses to line up her thoughts. She can tell the truth here: she will be heard. There is no fear.

'It seems easy for you to change your mind, Nakia,' she says, finally: 'you look at things one way until it does not suit you anymore. And then, afterwards, your world moulds around you, as if you have always thought that way. But I am not this way.'

'If I did not know you so well, I would think you were insulting me,' Nakia says wryly. 'But I have gathered by now that this is your idea of a compliment. Do you really think I will change how I feel about you? Hm? Am I so changeable, you think I would leave you?'

Okoye raises Nakia's hand and tightly kisses her palm, each knuckle, dip and vein. 'My love,' she says kindly, 'you did so to T'Challa. And what you do to him, you could do to me.' Nakia exhales slowly. It does not feel good to remind her of this. 'But I cannot make myself responsible for when you choose to love me. That will always be your choice. And if you do not choose me tomorrow, or the day after, it does not mean that you did not choose me today.

'I do not believe that we bind ourselves to the past by remembering the truth of it. There is nothing wrong, to me, with honouring it. So if one day, if all I have with you - with either of you - are my memories? Yes. Even if there were nothing else, I would accept that. I would keep that pain.'

'But you need me,' Nakia says slowly, 'to keep asking you. Each day... to ask?'

Okoye's heart goes alight with joy, and she turns over finally, to face Nakia. 'Yes,' she says, grabbing her into a kiss. Nakia laughs against her mouth, surprised. 'Yes!'

'Well, all right, then,' says Nakia. 'Okoye.' She grins. 'My love.' Okoye cannot stop smiling. 'Will you stay?'

'Oh, that is not the question,' says Okoye, laughing. Nakia makes a face. 'You will just have to try again tomorrow.' She kisses Nakia again, just because she can. 'And yes - I will.'

'Good,' says Nakia, eyes glittering. She dips down and presses her mouth between Okoye's breasts. 'Good,' she repeats, warm against the skin.

Behind her, T'Challa grumbles deep in his chest, displeased. He rolls forward, clumsy in sleep, and wraps himself around Okoye's back. Okoye smiles and nuzzles back against him with eyes closed. Nakia nudges their thighs together, clasping open T'Challa's hand above Okoye's waist, closing her in.

Ah, the night is not so long, she thinks. And Okoye falls asleep.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this definitely reminds me of an hp fic i read a few years back. will add the name once i remember!
> 
> anyway just a fun lil update: there is now more fic about cia agent ross in the black panther tag than there is about m'baku. [hannibal buress voice] fandoms is the same


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